AOL Sets Sights on Quigo for Targeted Ads

The acquisition will add to AOL's Platform-A digital ad platform in the advertising battle with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and social networking sites.

AOL moved to buy its fourth online advertising business this year, agreeing to acquire Quigo, Nov. 7., for an undisclosed sum.
Quigo specializes in contextual advertising that matches ads to the contents of a Web page. Quigo's AdSonar software lets advertisers purchase ads on Web sites based on specific pages, sections, topics or keywords. The New York-based company offers display and video ads bought on a cost-per-click, cost-per-impression, or cost-per-time basis.

Quigo will help AOL expand the use of contextual advertising across AOL's Web pages and its third-party networks. It also adds Quigo's more than 500 publisher relationships and a network of roughly 3,000 advertisers.

AOL, which has been steadily evolving into an online ad provider to grab a piece of that multi-billion-dollar pie, will add Quigo to its mobile ad provider Third Screen Media, ad-serving giant AdTech AG, and behavioral targeting specialist Tacoda, all of which AOL purchased this year to form the foundation of Platform-A, its digital ad platform. Quigo will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL within Platform-A.
Online ad networks from Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, as well as social networking upstarts Facebook and MySpace are using targeted ads to reach more users. Yahoo on Sept. 4 agreed to purchase targeted ad provider BlueLithium for $300 million.
Yahoo bags BlueLithium. Click here to read more.
To better support Platform-A, AOL will also move its senior executives, ad sales representatives and content producers from the current Dulles, Va. headquarters to a new headquarters in New York.
Time Warner, AOL's parent company, also said, Nov. 7, AOL's earnings dipped 24 percent while revenue fell 38 percent, which the company attributed to the shedding of its online access business last year. Time Warner said it expects the disappointing advertising revenue at its AOL unit to continue into next year.
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